Peanut Butter Chicken soup

500ml chicken stock, heated
8 chicken thighs, bone and skin on
340g jar smooth peanut butter
2 onions halved and thinly sliced
3 tbsp sunflower oil
3 tbsp finely chopped ginger
2 bay leaves
400g can chopped tomato
2 tablespoon tomato paste
5 fresh tomatoes, roughly chopped
3 sweet potatoes cut into chunks
200g green beans sliced
2 red bell/salad peppers, de-seeded and cut into chunks
Salt and pepper to season

Method

Heat a large pan and brown the chicken thighs. Once brown, remove from the pan and put to one side.
In the same pan add the onions. Fry until soft, then add the ginger tomato paste and fresh tomatoes. Cook for 5/7 minutes. Slowly add the stock, scraping up any bits stuck to the bottom of the pan as they will add extra flavour.
Add in the bay leaves, canned tomatoes and the peanut butter. Add some warm water to the jar, put the lid on and give it a good shake to get every little bit out of the jar. Pour into the pan.
Gently add in the chicken pieces and season with salt and pepper. Put the lid on the pan and simmer for 30 minutes.
Take the lid off and give the soup a stir. Add in the sweet potatoes, peppers and green beans, stir through and simmer for another 30 minutes.
When the 30 minutes is up, take the lid off and give it a stir. The chicken should be really tender. Take the pan off the heat.
Using a slotted spoon or some tongs, remove bay leaves, the chicken thighs and a few of the chunks of sweet potato. Leave to cool.
When the chicken is cool enough to handle, pull the chicken and skin from off the bone. Leave the meat from 2 of the thighs to one side with the sweet potato, and add the rest of the meat and skin to the pan. Blitz with a stick blender until smooth.
Shred the remaining chicken and cut the cooked sweet potato into smaller pieces. Add to the pan and stir through.

Serve with a a topping of crispy onions, sour cream or a soft boiled egg, or even on it's own as it's so tasty. You can even mix in some cooked rice.

Hey guys,

I wanted to follow this thread because my partner has the same issues. He has no bottom teeth left at all.

He is actually just doing a liquid diet now.

Hey Dizzy, glad to see you're doing so well. Do you normally blend these recipes or have you found any techniques on eating things like pepperoni, chicken, etc. without blending?
I havent been on here in awhile but we spoke before about you and he having very similar surgeries. If you have any tips on maneuvering food, could you pm me?

Best wishes to everyone.

Thanks,

Pam

Hi Pam,

Lovely to hear from you. I blended most things to start with, but slowly introduced boiled/steamed vegetables, poached egg or a lump of soft cheese/pate (at the bottom of the bowl) into soups without blending them. They are a bit like a stew/casserole with more sauce.

I found it easier to use a finger periodically, to move food to my teeth and check everything is in one location before taking a sip of water, shake my head to combine the food and water, and then swallow. Sometimes I quickly tip my head back, in like a reverse nod, as it helps the food and water to go down together. For me, it's been the most effective way to eat. I've eaten in front of friends and they've been OK with me doing that.
I keep a serviette/napkin to wipe my mouth and finger on, and I try to wear one down my front as I have a tendency to dribble food occasionally. The soup with chunky bits really helped me.

Today I made a dish of slightly overcooked pasta in mayonnaise, tartar sauce, tuna, sweetcorn, diced cucumber, grated cheese and pepper. Using the finger in the mouth technique, I was able to consume it. I still needed 750ml water to help, and it took me about an hour to consume, but it was a tasty achievement

Hi there, I am new here and glad I found this site.

This Monday will be 4 weeks since having half my tongue removed. They replaced it with a forearm flap. They also did the split mandible thing and I still have LOTS of stitches in my mouth. Probably just in the last week have I been able to start eating oatmeal, cream of wheat, things like that, but it definitely is a chore and not that enjoyable. I find more food in my mouth, is easy that trying to swallow little bits.
My questions are:
1. How long before I can kind of eat like normal? Do you eventually get to eat normally without having to use your finger to push food around? Will I eat pizza again?
2. Will I be able to speak fairly well without slobbering all over and spitting?
3. How long before the dissolvable stitches disappear from my mouth?

Also I just developed 2 little blister like bumps on the tip of my tongue (my real tongue) that sting like crazy. I live about 6 hours away from my doctor. Any ideas?

Thanks for any and all advise, I appreciate it!

Hi Mouthy One,
I'm sorry to hear about your surgery, you are in the right place for support.
With eating, it's like your mouth has gone back to being a toddlers mouth. You need to slowly introduce small bits of soft food at a time. My first 'meal' was a spoonful of mashed potato with a lot of gravy. It took me over 30 minutes to consume.
13 months on I'm not doing too badly with food, it just takes time and practise. At the moment your mouth is full of stitches and will still be swollen in places, so you've got to take it easy. You've been through a lot.
Answer to your questions:

1) It's up to you with how much you try, how long it takes you to recover, and how patient you are. Give yourself a break with trying to eat solid foods every so often. It's exhausting trying to eat solid foods. Extra sauces and drinks help, but smaller mouthfuls work much better too. You need to re-train your brain and mouth to find a way to eat that's comfortable to you.

2) The slobbering and spitting is your mouths way of protecting itself after trauma. It does ease over time, it just depends on each person on how long it takes.

3) Those stitches are annoying aren't they! I think mine finally disappeared after 10 weeks, but I can't remember exactly.

Get on the phone to your doctor and talk about the blisters. We're not professionals, we're just like you. Get yourself checked out for your own peace of mind .Even suggest having a meeting via zoom/video call, if you're able to show the blisters on there.

Thank you so much. I guess I was thinking 4 to 6 weeks I would be pretty well. I'l have to learn to be more patient.. hard to do for me!

It can take up to 2 years to fully recover and rehabilitate from OC. Are you having any other treatments (chemo, radiotherapy)?

No, they wanted to do 6 weeks of radiation, but to be honest, I just can't do it. The surgery, trachea, the pain, all that was enough for me. My quality of life is more important. 41 lymph nodes removed, all negative. Close margin on one side, but I feel OK about it. So I am wondering, just from the surgery, how long to be fairly normal again? Or will I ever be fairly normal?

I absolutely understand where you are coming from. Radiotherapy is gruelling.
There's no set time on when you'll feel 'normal'. As the weeks and months go by you'll notice little changes, such as feeling a bit better or feeling confident in trying something challenging to eat. You will have a few set backs, when your body doesn't want to do anything except sit or sleep, and it doesn't want to eat any solid foods, but that's OK. As long as you are drinking plenty of water (2 litres) and getting 2500 calories (with around 90g of protein as it helps the body heal), you'll be grand. Try to do a little exercise every day, even if it's a 30 minute walk or going up and down the stairs 10 times in a row, it'll help massively.

13 months from my surgery I'm feeling well, but I still have days/hours where I'm tired or I just don't want to eat solid food, or I just feel down. What we've gone through is traumatic. The surgery is brutal, and we all need to accept that there isn't a time limit on recovery, including that of the mind as well as the body.

Your recovery will depend on you, one day at a time.

TMO

Great advice already given here. Just want to add a few comments. I think eating solids after 4 weeks is good progress. As Dizz said, we all move at our own pace. I too had the sores on the tip of my old tongue. I noticed the old tongue does all the work. As the new tongue shrinks and heals, the old tongue continues to gain control. I think that forces it to rub on the teeth and other areas in your mouth. Good advice to check with your docs.

I am 5 months since surgery and still learning to manipulate some of the more difficult items (think solid/dry/spicy). But, I have been able to eat pizza for awhile now! The sauce has to be on the blander side and cooked softer or with lots of cheese. Radiation is what made me sensative to spices/acids.

BTW, if you have not already, I suggest you talk to your oncologist about the odds of cancer coming back. In my situation (Stage IV SCC on side of my tongue, 18 nodes removed, 1 node with SCC but it was still inside the node), the odds of cancer coming back dropped from roughly 40% without radiation to 20% with radiation. I had to specifically ask for these odds. Not sure why they wouldn't talk about it up front. Maybe most people follow their recommendations without it. Radiation does suck but its a different kind of challenge than surgery. The process is slower and not as intense. In your surgery, you wake up suddenly with over a dozen tubes and sensors hanging off you and you can barely breath, eat, speak, sleep. With radiation, it's pain and difficult but drawn out over weeks/months. You can sleep at home, eat (limited stuff), speak, breath, etc.

So glad you are improving. Please keep us up to date on your progress.

Nels